Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Yoga, health, wellness, and recipes from YogaDownload.com

The key to any home yoga practice is to designate a special space just for you and your mat. Keep this space clear of anything else. You can decorate your space to make it comfortable and inviting. Within your space, add inspirational items that may motivate your practice including inspirational quotes, meditation books or even photos of your loved ones. Read: Why You Should Start a Home Practice

Amp up the scents

Aromatherapy is the perfect way to bring some magic into your environment! Aromatherapy uses natural oils that have been extracted from parts of a plant to heal or enhance the practitioners’ physical well-being. Using oils during yoga will help you focus better and uplift your mood. Use a scented candle or a diffuser at your designated yoga space during practice. Don’t know which oil to try? Eucalyptus is a great one to start with as it helps you breathe better!

Add music

While it’s generally better to practice in a quiet environment, you can also achieve a quiet state of mind through music! Certain music or sounds help reduce anxiety and stress, therefore enabling your mind to reach a more meditative state. Good music will also help slow down your breathing, allowing you to inhale and exhale deeply. The kind of music you play will largely depend on your personality and the type of yoga you are practicing. For a more high-powered yoga, try upbeat tunes. If you’re practicing Yin yoga, slow and soothing tunes might be more beneficial.

Join an online class

Change things around in your usual practice by participating in an online yoga class! There are many websites offering free yoga classes online that you can join. You have the option to choose a teacher, a style of yoga and even the duration of the class!

An online yoga class will give you a different perspective of the practice and perhaps even inspiring your own practice. You might find good alignment cues on a yoga video that you can then incorporate to your own practice.

Include meditation

Ending your practice with meditation is sure to help you feel energized and rejuvenated to start the day! Just a few short minutes to clear your mind can do wonders both mentally and physically. Meditation can lower your stress levels and help you with depression. It also aids weight loss! Take at least 10 minutes at the end of your day to sit on your mat, relax and meditate.

The great news is that there are many different types of meditation that you can try out, from mindfulness, and vipassana to tantra and zazen. If you are just getting started, guided meditation may be the best for you. There are plenty of practical meditation apps available on the web to guide you through!

Elaine is a contributing writer for BookYogaTeacherTraining.com. She is a big fan of Harry Potter and dreams of organizing a Harry Potter-themed yoga class one day. To keep the Dementors at bay, she recommends meditation.

Related Posts

4 Reasons to Branch Out in Your Yoga Practice

Sun Salutations, Warrior Poses, Downward Dog – every yogi has their favourite tried and tested poses and flows that they may be able to do with their eyes closed. As you move through your daily routine on the matt, you might notice your mind drifting. The flows that once took concentration and took your mind away from the humdrum day to day thoughts are now second nature, and you’ve lost your sense of zen. It’s easy to get into a rut if you stick to your comfort zones in life – and your yoga practice is no different. This week we’re challenging you to try a new class every day for two weeks.
Here are four key benefits that branching out in your yoga practice can bring you.
1. Keep your brain active
Did you know that learning a new skill, such as a different language or something creative like a musical instrument can help your brain form new connections? The same applies when you learn a new yoga flow or try a challenging pose. Stimulating your brain in this way can increase your memory skills, concentration and even your creativity levels. Learning something new, like figuring out a new yoga challenge can create neural pathways in the brain, increasing brain power.

Five Ways to Expand Your Practice with Partner Yoga

For most of us, our yoga practice is a very personal thing. We come to our mat to get out of our heads and into our body, to ignite that inner fire and cultivate inner peace. Some days we can go to a class and leave without saying much more than “hello, namaste, and goodbye”.

How to Have Beautiful Skin? Avoid these 10 Mistakes

Here are 10 common mistakes to avoid to have beautiful skin and keep your skin healthy.​
1. Trying to hydrate with sodas or energy drinks. How these drinks age your body and why avoiding them will keep your skin healthy: As the years go by our bodies literally dry up from the inside out. Our skin just can’t continue to retain moisture like it used to back in the day when we were plump infants with juicy flesh that stored water like desert succulents. Diet sodas and energy drinks may quench your thirst on the spot but they don’t hydrate your system and help have beautiful skin in the long run like good old H2O does! Why? Because they are jam packed with artificial flavors, sugars, chemical preservatives and acidifying agents that can lead to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, tooth decay, organ stress and lowered immune system. What you can do to make a change: DRINK WATER, DRINK WATER, DRINK WATER. Drinking water is the true fountain of youth! It is all your body needs to stay hydrated and the easiest way to have beautiful skin. How much water should you drink? A good rule of thumb is to drink between 64 ounces and 0.67% of your body weight per day. For example, if your body weight is 150 pounds, then you need to drink anywhere between 64 ounces and 100 ounces (0.67% x 150) of water per day. Read more about hydration hacks here.
2. Getting too much sun exposure without SPF. It is common knowledge that ultraviolet (UV) rays is harmful to your skin because it damages skin fibers called elastin, which makes your skin stretch and sag like a dry old rubber band that you use tie a bunch of mail together. What you can do to make a change and keep your skin healthy and beautiful: THINK SUN KISSED NOT SUN DRIED!

The Core Of Who You Are: Connect to Muladhara Chakra

There is so much pressure to get into the best schools in order to receive the highest education. We work ourselves into exhaustion so we can make as much money as possible to pay off school debts and afford luxurious homes. These supposed paths of lives are followed in the hopes of “enjoying” ourselves on the weekends but deny ourselves activities that truly make us happy.
In fact, most people are so stressed from the pressures of achievement that they are still thinking of work on their time off and can’t find enjoyment because the mind is so distracted with the pressure and stress of having to be ‘successful’. That sounds like a trap we blindly walk into. And for the majority, it looks like that trap has been accepted.

26 Ways to Bring More Balance Into Your Life

I always think as the summer’s sun begins to wane and the cooler autumn’s air begins to descend upon us, it means that things are going to slow down, that life is going to calm down and with that, so too will my list of things to do. But year after year, this has not been the case, at least with my life. This year, more so than most, I find myself needing to seek balance more than ever. So, inspired by my teacher‘s invitation, different however from my own, as the heat of the summer moves into the ‘desired’ introspection and cooler air of Fall, my invitation for you is to seek balance between all that is still calling you outward and your body’s need now to begin its’ journeying within; to do not what you feel you have to but to do begin now to do that which truly nourishes and rejuvenates your soul. Not sure how to do this? Feeling a little all over the place? Spread too thin? Not sure where to even begin?

Yoga for Crossfit: Why it Improves Performance & 3 Poses

Yoga is not only a good way to relax your mind and body, it is also being praised for improving Crossfit performance. Yoga creates more flexibility and creates more mobility, which are beneficial for the rigors of Crossfit as well as reducing the risk of injury.
While the practices are different in many ways, Crossfit and yoga actually have a lot in common, so if you practice yoga, it’s can be easier to learn to practice Crossfit, and vice versa.
Benefits of Yoga for Crossfit:
Here are a few reasons why you should consider using yoga as a part of your crossfit training regime.
Yoga has many gentle poses that develop your core which is an important part to Crossfit. Being capable of balancing and holding the body with the core is essential. When you regularly practice yoga, you promote strength, endurance, and flexibility and have a greater awareness of how to use your core effectively. You also find your inner strength which is important in Crossfit training.
You practice cultivating calm, in challenging moments in yoga, and that can really help during Crossfit.
Yoga can help us have more fun in Crossfit. Studies have found that yoga allows you to become more self-aware and improves your energy levels, helping you to enjoy life more fully. Sometimes in Crossfit, training and progress becomes such a focus point that we forget to be light and have fun. Yoga can help here.